


The Times We Had

by voidfruit



Series: Start Anew (Cheat Police) [1]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Angst, M/M, missing the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3432035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidfruit/pseuds/voidfruit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sjin returns to SipsCo, the original compound, now abandoned and in ruins.<br/>("Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Times We Had

> I walked across an empty land

Sjin strolled the grass, taking his emerald hoe up in hand, using it as a walking staff.   
A brisk wind fell over the landscape, rustling the pines’ leaves and brushing back his hair.  
Sjin caught his breath as he took sight of it.  
SipsCo.  
The halved skyscraper leaning to in the distance, barely taking its own weight into account. The weakened stone bricks would probably crumble at any moment now… Where had he gone wrong? It was supposed to last forever. It was supposed to be invincible… like a duo he once knew, never to separate…

  
> I knew the pathway like the back of my hand

He hiked up to the base of the, unfinished, stone path. His fingers traced the familiar design, the bricks laid carefully on the ground from what felt so short ago. Where was it… his eyes gazed down to the second stone, corner brick to the far right, 4 meters in. Had it eroded? Probably. Sjin knelt down, putting a gentle hand to the small, otherwise unnoticeable brick. Brushing some soot from it, he found the carved words: “Sips X Sjin”. He sighed and smiled, his eyes crinkling. It was still there after all. He was lucky he got the location right… even after all this time. Strange how he knew this place by heart. It was a product of his love, after all… so many memories here.

  
> I felt the earth beneath my feet

Sjin, buckling his hoe to his back again, walked back to the outskirts of the ruins. A gaping hole in the side of the factory splintered Sjin’s heart. The red factory bricks were mossy with age, strewed across the overgrown dried grass and foliage.  
He marched forward, coming to the base of the skyscraper. A cave entrance lay where it shouldn’t have… over what would have been, what? The interview chamber, maybe? Putting force on the wooden beam, Sjin shoved it out of the way as it call trees to the ground with a shudder, followed by an implosion of dust and gravel. He coughed violently as his lungs took in a breath of the musty cave’s air, blinking and recoiling at the sight.

  
> Sat by the river and it made me complete

It wasn’t a natural cave. It was years and years of neglect, piled high onto… the main compound. The red power dojo, the sorting facility! The geothermal facility… yes, the interview chamber… the pool that took them way to long to fill. A surge of emotion filled Sjin as he could barely make out these ruins, with dimmed torches lighting the way. How had they been lit? Maybe a successful businessman came to take pointers on what NOT to do to your company…  
The pool, that goddamn pool. Like everything else, it was never really finished. They were going to extend it to where the… Sjin stopped in thought as he finally registered the state of the place. It was a mess. It was underground, for gods sakes…  
They used to have a beach there. The tower of power lay horribly wrecked, its iron scaffolding rusting in the corner.  
Sjin sat down on the dusty marble in the dark, poking at the water with his emerald hoe. There was no way he’d tap that mosquito-infested water with his bare hands… but even in this state, it brought back memories. Sjin managed a smile as he remembered him and Sips fooling around in their swimming trunks on, occasionally fooling around with less their swimming trunks on…

  
> Oh simple thing, where have you gone?

Sjin, walking out of the cave, wondered where Sips was now, what he was doing. Did he ever think about coming back here like Sjin did? Maybe he was the one that lit those torches… But no. Sjin felt that Sips didn’t want… this, him, anymore. He didn’t…  
He was doing SipsCo without Sjin now. That was great. That was… that was fine. It wasn’t like Sjin had plans for their house together… not like he studied the way the sun set over the golden fields, to pick where the windows would face. It wasn’t like he’d cried over Sips’ statue or hugged it when he knew he could never hug back, or missed his stupid jokes and laugh.  
It wasn’t like he missed his gentle touch. The way he stroked his hair… cupping his chin into a kiss… and how Sjin would never have that feeling again…

  
> I’m getting old and I need something to rely on

The farm was great. Sjin loved it with all his heart. It was what he wanted, wasn’t it? But he could want for more than one thing. He was greedy like that, you know? He could want his farm, and to be with Sips, and to Magic Police and everything. But it seemed a hollow victory at his farm. Before, with his first one… that had a completely different feel to it. It was lighthearted, with tall orchards that seemed familiar for some reason, and warm, sunny green fields. He knew he was safe, that he could always come back to SipsCo too, to stay there for a while…   
“He didn’t want to do SipsCo anymore… you’re not about the big money, big women, big fun, anymore?” Sjin wanted to scream. He wanted to sweep Sips off his feet and lift him up into the air in a kiss, pressing his head into his chest and cry, cry tears of the joy of seeing him again, being able to hold him again, being able to be with him again. He wanted to rely on Sips, as he always could have… Sjin wanted that back.

  
> So tell me when, you’re going to let me in

If he could go back to Sips, maybe, just maybe, he could persuade him? Maybe, to come back, to be with him again? Even after Sjin had betrayed his trust by farming… he didn’t see why that was such a great offense. Sjin loved Sips, and he knew it as well. Sjin was waiting for him, waiting to take his hand again… to pull Sips out of the molten dirt as he gasped for breath, holding him in his arms, so glad to have his love alive again. If he could just do that now…

  
> I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin

They never finished most of this stuff, anyways. The pool was only the tip of the iceberg. They were going to put floors into the skyscraper, finish the stone pathways on the outside, the hydroelectric facility… and of course, actually finish dirt production.   
The task was simply too big, Sjin guessed. After things got ruined by the sand… they both sort of abandoned it. It was both of their faults. But they could come back, they could rebuild… right?

  
> I came across, a fallen tree

Sjin walked to the skyscraper. Jesus… why? Why did it have to be this, of all things, that fell? This was the one thing that was supposed to be sturdy, to be a testament to his love for Sips…Co. It had been so beautiful, so magnificent. It had literally scraped the sky, at the world height limit. It was the best thing on the server… owned by the best duo on the server… it was as that anecdote he told:  
“It’ll get dark early one day in the village. People will be like, ‘What? What’s going on? What’s happening?’ And then an old man will come out from the crowd and say, ‘……SIPSCO….’ And then, like Metallica will come out, and yeah!”  
That had to be the best time of Sjin and Sips’ life together… talking about anything that came to mind and building that skyscraper, working tirelessly all day and cuddling up in a warm bed at night… on Sips’ broad shoulders, arms wrapped around each other, sighing in content…  
The skyscraper wasn’t just a building, it was a symbol. He took that skyscraper out of himself for Sips. It truly was a testament to them, to SipsCo, SjipsCo, whatever they decided on calling it.

  
> I felt the branches of it looking at me

It killed him, ripped him apart to see the skyscraper defeated. He had been so eager to build it, one of his more laborious projects, something he’d put his own soul into. He didn’t just “work hard” on it… it felt like a part of him. It was probably the most important thing he had built in his lifetime. And now, it was dead. He had to come back to this, he had to take it up in his hands and take it to greatness again. This was a part of his life. A part of his and Sips’ lives.

  
> Is this the place? We used to love?

But the compound was destroyed to oblivion. Half of it was underground. The factory was insanely overrun with dirt and pooling rainwater (more dirt was in there now than they ever manufactured), and the skyscraper was dead. SipsCo was dead. It couldn’t be rebuilt, ever. Sips didn’t want to, Sjin could never get him back… it was a hopeless effort. A hopeless effort to get the memories back.

  
> Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?

But he remembered everything about this place. He had a feeling Sips did, too. Their conversations and moments together… the horrible mess of spaghetti piping on the sorting facility, the confusing array of redstone torches and engines in the geothermal facility underneath the lava tanks. Nothing would make sense here, unless you had experienced it the way Sips and Sjin did. Together.  
The time they dozed off on the top of the sorting facility, listening to the white noise hum of the machines and each other’s breath… how they flew to the top of the skyscraper and attempted to dive into the pool from its capstone.   
Sjin needed come back to SipsCo, he yearned for the days of their time together. He had a feeling Sips might, as well.


End file.
